1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a projection lens and, more particularly, to an enlargement projection lens suitable for projecting an image formed by an electronic imaging tube on a screen as an enlarged image.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In full-color image display, red, blue and green cathode-ray tubes are used for a conventional video image projection lens. The red, blue and green images are projected by the projection lens onto the screen.
A preferable projection lens is a wide-angled lens with a small F number. When the F number is small, a brighter image can be obtained. The wide angle provides a desired projection image at a short projection distance with the advantage that the projection lens can be made compact as a whole.
Conventional projection lenses include spherical lenses and nonspherical lenses having nonspherical surfaces. It is difficult for a spherical lens to achieve high performance when the number of lens components is decreased. For this reason, nonspherical lenses have been recently used as projection lenses.
Conventional projection lenses having nonspherical surfaces for correcting aberration have a long history of development as exemplified by British Patent Publication No. 593514. The projection lens disclosed by this patent comprises: a first group which consists of a compound lens of a double-convex lens and a double-concave lens and which has a nonspherical surface as a first surface so as to correct aberration depending on an aperture and chromatic aberration along an optical axis; a positive second group which consists of two plano-convex lenses and which has a convex surface facing the screen; and a third group having a negative refracting power for an image plane flattening means. With the above arrangement, spherical aberration and coma are corrected by the first group, and curvature of field distortion is corrected by the third group. Spherical aberration and coma correction by the first group are not sufficient. In particular, coma correction is poor. For this reason, flare occurs in a focusing plane, and wide-angle projection having a half view angle of 25.degree. or more cannot be provided.